Typical Habits Of A Wandering Ghost

In a way, we became our own ghosts, haunting the memories that we loved, the old places that captured our imaginations when nothing else did.

The Tragedy Of Ophelia

The Frog Prince

Suburban Horror Story

This week we got another one of those "have you seen me?" postcards printed on cheap blue cardstock. We used to collect them and stick them on the refrigerator in order of date. Those who had been missing the longest were on the bottom, while the most recent ones were stuck at the top. We used to call them the lost kids and pretend they were the ones who were finally able to escape this suburban monotony and make it to Neverland. We knew better though. "You know they are never coming back right?" she used to say with her eyes, big and solemn, "make sure you don't end up as one of them." 

June passes into July. The fridge gets so crowded we have to move some of the older kids to make room for more. We put away the 5-year-old brunette who disappeared from the car lot of the local grocery store in 1981 with a heavy heart. But it wasn't until August, a particularly hellish August, when she finally disappeared from the playground where all the neighborhood kids liked to hang. Then the police came with their sniffer dogs and uniformed men with their mouths set in a grim line. And even before Mummy came home to tell me the bad news, I already knew what had happened. It was only a matter of time before her face ended up on the fridge. I've gotten used to seeing her every morning as I reach for the orange juice - I don't think I could ever forget that face.

Young Rebels

Evacuation Order No.18

It was late December and outside it was dusk. Every time the clouds began rolling in, she would set out the buckets and wait for the rain. Without looking up from the map, she stuck her hand out to catch the cool droplets, letting them run through her fingers like threads of silk. The 8’o clock warning whistle sounded. She dried her hands on the fraying edges of her sleeve and stepped in front of the window. Last spring, hundreds of magpies came down from the mountain in a cloud of black and white that blotted out the sky, like a beautiful dream. And now? She is sitting on the stone steps in front of her house, practicing her alphabet backwards, and wondering what will be for supper, maybe, or who was winning the war. She wonders if there are stars in the desert and if she’ll ever find her way home. Everything keeps changing.

Burial Applicant

Yesterday, there were thirteen ravens perched on the tree outside my window. And in the weak sunlight filtering through the clouds, I shivered. Because I thought I saw you die Tuesday morning. Because last night, I visited your grave and placed a dozen white magnolia flowers on the fresh earth and watched as they drowned in the rain. Yet here you are, walking past my house as always: lost in the labyrinth of your mind, dark curls tangling in the wind. Are you dead or am I just a ghost? Somehow, I am afraid to ask.

Underwater Basket Weaving

You and I are the self-abusive type. The kind that likes to sit in the cold summer rain while clutching old newspapers, thinking about missing pieces and broken keys. In the morning, we'd skip breakfast and drown ourselves in work, trying to ignore the deep aching hunger in the hollow space behind our ribs. In the evening, there are only endless cups of tea. 

It's Friday night and the bass from the party downstairs is making the pencils on my desk tremble. Or maybe that's from the nervous jiggling of my leg, knocking steadily against the desk. I'm clutching my camera like a lifeline and even that doesn't feel like enough.

California Rest In Peace

Sometimes when I'm walking home in the blazing sun, I like to pretend we're in California. Hanging out on the monkey bars after 3 PM smoking chocolate cigarettes, like some delinquent teenagers with our over-sized sunglasses and ripped shorts. We'd stay out until the sun finally sets and eat raspberry sorbet instead of dinner - getting drunk on all the good things in life.

Cause it's not summer unless you are running after the ice cream truck and counting out every penny while biting your tongue; unless you are falling asleep on the doorstep with the fireflies glowing in your hair. Every day I'd fall in love with another stranger on the bus and secretly draw his face in my sketchbook. Tomorrow, I'll dream up stories of him that inevitably end with a broken heart - just the way I like it.

Pumped Up Kicks

I've waited for a long time. Yeah, the slight of my hand is now a quick pull trigger. 

I reason with my cigarette. And say your hair's on fire you must have lost your wits, yeah?

Instead of studying for finals I'm making cardboard guns and dreaming of summer photoshoots. I found a wonderful room in a cute house with purple doors and I can't wait to move in. Every evening I'll take long walks to the grocer and buy leeks and potatoes for dinner and watch the stars from my window seat while reading Nancy Drew mysteries. Weekends will be spent running wild in the Ozarks collecting specimens or maybe searching for a little turtle friend - I really need someone to share strawberries with. Lately I've been listening for the clink of ice cubes against the glass and the hum of the ceiling fan. I'm so sick of school I'll take anything.

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun. 

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks you'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet.

Glowworm Grotto

The constellation of Leo is twinkling tonight making the air so cold it hurts to breathe. It was only 4:00 but the street lamps had already turned on as he climbed the hill with vague familiarity, slipping in all the same places. He never reached the top because the scene dissolved and he was walking slowly across the cut pavement. It's the same, but different and he can't quite put his finger on it: the queer feeling as he turned on the lights and said "I'm home" to nobody in particular. But he imagined this might change, so he laughed because everything was going to be okay.

This is a memory. Which is to say, it was probably just a dream.